SNP leadership ‘elitist’ says former deputy leader

The SNP leadership is a “narrow elite” which must stop exercising “total control” over the party and its policies, according to former deputy leader Jim Sillars.

Writing for Holyrood magazine ahead of the SNP’s biggest conference in history, Sillars says the growth of the party since the referendum on independence has made the current leadership structure “unsustainable”.

Party membership has quadrupled in the period.

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A number of resolutions have been submitted to the conference organisers on the topic of a second referendum, says Sillars, but have not made it onto the agenda.

“The truth is, that on the referendum, the conference will have to wait until Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to know what the party will find, or not find, in the manifesto. That is no way to make such a policy upon which the fate of the Scottish nation will rest,” he says.

The White Paper on independence last year, which the board of Yes Scotland were not consulted on, was an example of where the SNP leadership dictated policy, Sillars says, while critics were “scolded for lack of loyalty”.

“The lesson has to be learnt by the SNP that next time it cannot expect its view – based on a narrow elite’s decisions – to stand central to the issues that will dominate the next campaign. There is an urgent need for the SNP leadership to embrace a real policy role for the membership in future.”

He adds: “That unilateral assertion of absolute leadership of the campaign cannot be permitted again, because it is a weakness. Either the leadership acknowledges that its past practice cannot endure, or the membership starts to assert its rights,” he writes.

See the full column by Jim Sillars in the new issue of Holyrood magazine, available at party conference.